Alexei Navalny, key engine behind Russian protests

MOSCOW 
Alexei Navalny has done more than any other opposition leader to lay the groundwork for the protest movement now challenging Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's 12-year grip on power. His reward came last weekend when he took the stage before tens of thousands of cheering demonstrators.

Working the crowd like a firebrand preacher, Navalny had people responding to his calls with cries of "Yes" and "We are the Power!" His role now looks set only to grow.

The 35-year-old corruption-fighting lawyer and popular blogger has inspired and mobilized many in Russia's young Internet generation, who until recently had seemed reluctant to get up from their laptops.

He reaches tens of thousands through his blog, consistently among the top three on Live Journal, and has more than 167,000 followers on Twitter.

He has tapped into deep anger throughout society, particularly over the corruption that pervades public life and the generous subsidies sent to the restive mostly Muslim regions in southern Russia. Navalny's description of Putin's political party as the "party of crooks and thieves" and his call to "Stop feeding the Caucasus" have become catchphrases of the opposition.

The Kremlin has woken up to the threat posed by the charismatic and ambitious Navalny, but efforts to silence him have only added to his stature.

Navalny was arrested after leading a protest march in defiance of police the day after Dec. 4 parliamentary elections. The shameless falsifications that had helped Putin's United Russia party retain its majority outraged many Russians, and more than 5,000 joined what turned into the largest anti-Putin demonstration in years. Navalny was jailed for 15 days, but the protests only grew.

When he was released last week, Navalny said he felt that he had been "jailed in one country and freed in another." Dozens of camera crews had waited into the early hours of the morning for his release, in a sign of his growing fame.

He was one of the most anticipated speakers at Saturday's rally, which drew an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people in the largest protest in the country since the demonstrations that swept away the Soviet Union two decades ago.

The outpouring of public anger has shaken Putin as he prepares to return to the presidency in a March election. He needs more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a second round, and polls show he will have trouble pulling this off if he meets protesters' demands for a free and fair election.

Still, Putin's eventual victory does seem assured. He faces a handful of challengers in what appears to be a Kremlin strategy to split the protest vote. His most serious rival is the veteran Communist leader, an unpalatable choice for most of the demonstrators. The opposition has no consensus candidate it could rally behind.

Navalny says he won't stand in this election because of the barriers that block any candidates that do not have Kremlin approval.

Speaking Monday night on Ekho Moskvy radio, he called for continued pressure on the Kremlin to follow through on its promises to make it easier for opposition candidates to compete in elections. If this happens, he said he might form his own political party and run for president in the future.